


the stars will appear

by okayantigone



Series: paradigm shift - akatsuki!jiraiya AU [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, Akatsuki Jiraiya AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 13:39:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14045430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: “i don’t want to fight you,” jiraiya says gently. always the damn pacifist, so warm, and inviting. “you can come to me. it can be like before.”or the one where orochimaru keeps having to get his hands dirty for the people he loves.





	the stars will appear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hongmunmu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongmunmu/gifts).



> this is based on hongmunmu's incredible, gorgeous akatsuki!Jiraiya AU, and I am so grateful to have permission to play in that particular sandbox!

the rain beats brutally down on the ground around them, thick grey sheets of it, plastering orochimaru’s hair down, soaking him to his bones. he hates rain country, hates it more than he has ever hated anything in his life. it’s the place that took jiraiya for good, that wretched, pathetic land, but jiraiya has always dreamed of being a hero.   
  


 

 

“i don’t want to fight you,” jiraiya says gently. always the damn pacifist, so warm, and inviting. “you can come to me. it can be like before.” 

 

it’s mockery, dangling his desires like that right in front of him. it’s a chance he might have jumped on once, before all the messes.   
  
“it can never be like before,” he says quietly, neutrally. the cold makes his fingers stiff and painful, but he had thought this body would last him a little longer, would push a little harder.   
  
“are you certain you want to do this?”   
  
orochimaru does not doubt. orochimaru has never doubted. he would annihilate this whole village, and raze every city to the ground, and kill every man, woman and child in his way, to hurt jiraiya the same way jiraiya’s abandonment hurt him.   
  
he opens his mouth, but instead of answering, simply draws kusanagi, and takes his stance. the heavy silks he’s taken to wearing are weighed down with the water, and the beautiful kimono will surely be ruined by rainwater and blood, and mud.   
  
he slants a sharp look at jiraiya, who has also readied himself for a fight, but there is grief in his eyes, so powerful orochimaru doesn’t even want to begin to consider it. he quenched his own grief years ago, stomped it down, killed his heart. someone had to do the dirty work, and it was always going to be him. 

he’d get his hands bloody one more time, before this could get out of control. 

jiraiya draws blood, and orochimaru curses under his breath. for all that he prides himself on his control of manda, he and the snake boss have been on the outs, ever since he gave naruto the toad contract. but naruto had wanted to follow in his father’s legacy, and orochimaru was hardly one to deny an orphaned child the opportunity.   
  
he drags his bleeding thumb over the summoning tattoo inked into his arm.   
  
“you can claim your one hundred human sacrifices and anything else you can eat, when we are finished,” he says, before the snake can address or threaten him.   
  
_let’s see if all these years of senjutsu are going to finally pay off_ , he thinks to himself. 

he knows jiraiya. knows his fighting style, knows what to be ready for. they had been one person, once, and orochimary hadn’t known where he ended, and the other began - him, jiraiya and tsunade had existed a marvelous three-headded creature.   
  
“you will risk your eternal life?” jiraiya shouts across the gap between manda and gamabunta. “give this up, maru. there is so much i can give you.”   
  
eternal life.   
  
but he has achieved that, hasn’t he? has left bits and pieces of himself. in kabuto’s patient smile when he needs to haul kakashi’s ungrateful ass back into his hospital room every damn time, in kimimaro’s quiet scarred hands, in karin’s exasperated sighs. and naruto. he wonders sometimes, if maybe he should have laid off the oipum a litle more all these years, sometimes, when he isn’t quite sure which child stands in front of him. nawaki? naruto? in the end, he will fail them both as a sensei. this body won’t last the fight, but it will be enough. it has to be enough. he has to win, and drag jiraiya down with him,   
  
not for konoha, whose gorgeous arching walls shunned him. but for tsunade. that had always been the goal, after all. to leave the walls standing, so she would have a place to return to. and jiraiya too, before he realized how far gone his friend was to fanaticism.   
  
“i have achieved what i wanted,” he says patiently. the cough works its way out of his exhausted body.   
  
he would like to be buried with his parents. maybe anko can lay a white snake on his grave, instead of flowers. maybe one day she will forgive him for leaving again.   
  
the rasengan spins beautifully. there was always a hidden elegance to jiraiya’s brute strength. he wonders if the stupid oaf ever realized. not that orochimaru would ever tell him. better that he never know.   
  
the poison will finish him off. will work its way slowly and rot him from the inside out, and by the time he realizes, it will be too late. maybe tsunade would have been able to save him.  _but you betryaed me first_ , orochimaru thinks. 

jiraiya is gentle. the gallant hero. even when he slams a hole through him and rips his body through, he has his other arm ready to take orochimaru’s weight, and lay him down. the pain in his eyes is too much for orochimaru to be smug about the poison.   
  
“was it worth it?” he asks, quietly. he can’t focus well on jiraiya’s face.   
  
you can have one of my eyes, itachi had said, when this is over. when i am dead.   
  
everything orochimaru had ever let go of had his clawmarks all over it.   
  
“leaving me. for these orphans, was it worth it?”   
  
he likes to think he knows the answer already. the answer had been there all along, the first time kimimaro hid his face in the crook of his neck, and called him father.   
  
“no,” jiraiya says, but orochimaru can hear his heart, and it is lying. that’s okay. that’s okay now.   
  
“i can’t see.” he says in the crook of jiraiya’s neck. “it’s too dark, and i can’t see.”   
  
_i am afraid_ , is what he doesn’t say. _i am so afraid._

“hold tight, my love, and the stars will appear,” jiraiya speaks in his ear.   
  
so warm. he had always been so warm. a solid place for him to lean, and rest.   
  
“you knew all this time?” blood slowly bubbles out of his mouth. “you knew, didn’t you?”   
  
“yes.”   
  
he closes his eyes. having them open is useless anyway. jiraiya’s hair tickles his face. there is so many things he wants to say.   
  
“i wasn’t angry anymore,” he settles, finally. “and you should have come home.”   
  
_this is my home_ , says jiraiya’s heart.   
  
“i know,” he says instead.   
  
orochimaru’s breaths drag out of him forever, it seems.   
  
manda bows his head.   
  
“the next time i am summoned, jiraiya, i will slaughter you for this,” the serpent warns.   
  
“take his body to konoha,” jiraiya says quietly. “it’s where he would want to be buried.”   
  
he wonders if it had been worth it.   
  
_that’s what we do this for, isn’t it?_  orochimaru had asked, one night, irritably, cleaning blood off kusanagi meticulously, arching one slender eyebrow at his teammates.  _peace in our time_. 


End file.
